Since The Tanooki has been pretty much dead to the world in the days leading up to E3, we have news just sitting around waiting to get reported! Among the items, this announcement of the Project Natal name change. What was known as Project Natal will now be called Kinect! Childhood memories aside, what do you think of this new name? Frankly, I didn’t think it could get worse than Natal. Thanks Microsoft! The consensus in the Tanooki reporting center (read: our crammed hotel room) this morning is a resounding round of apathy with a dash of “meh”. As Jason points out, the name makes sense in context, (and I can’t disagree with Pete when he says he couldn’t come up with anything better himself), but it seems curious that they’d go with a name so directly attached to another beloved toy.

Among the new titles we can expect to come out shortly after the launch are a dance themed game from MTV called Dance Central, the return of motion control to racing game Joyride, a virtual cat game known as Kinectimals, Kinect Sports, Kinect Adventures (a river rafting game), a new Star Wars game from LucasArts, and a title featuring Disney characters.